By Andrew Jed, Audio Phix | The greater Los Angeles area is struggling with what may become one of the most costly natural disasters in US history and arguably the most devastating natural disaster in the history of California. The Palisades fire, the Eaton fire, and the Hurst fire have, in mere days, ripped through one of the most important entertainment capitals in the world bringing many people who have devoted their life to the creative arts to their knees.
It has been a time of trial for many of my friends in the music industry, and they have been describing their experience to me as “surreal” and “apocalyptic.” While it is impossible yet to see what the fallout from this destruction will be, we do know that it will be substantial, and it will affect the entertainment industry immensely…with a significant impact on musicians.
But to understand how devastating these fires are to all the creative professionals affected by them, let’s first understand something important about the music industry in LA specifically:
The Los Angeles wildfires will have an enormous impact on the music industry
There are three main music industry hubs in the USA (four if you include Austin, TX, which I think you should because Texas has become ridiculously important to reinventing the past and remolding the future of country music…and current television—but I will leave it off the list for the purpose of this article).
I am talking about New York City, Nashville, and Los Angeles. I have spent all of 6 days in New York City, a few years in Nashville, and a rather formative chunk of my adult life in LA. I can’t speak much about NYC, I love Nashville, but I am in love with Los Angeles.
What I find extremely fascinating about LA, especially as it pertains to the music industry, is that in spite of all the record labels, music venues, and pop stars that live in LA, the music industry as an active whole still exists largely underground.
Hollywood (i.e. “The Movies”) is without doubt the bright shining star of The City Of Angels to the point that when people think of Los Angeles, they really only think of films. . . .
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Most people have no idea, but the music creation part of the music industry comes out of people’s homes, so when a fire rips through a major music town like LA and burns houses to the ground, the way we make music burns down with them.
This is exceptionally devastating as professional working musicians make far less income than the average music consumer realizes. It is even more true in our modern era of music streaming platforms driven by large international corporations and highly invested shareholders pumping music out to the far corners of the planet with almost no financial return to the artists who created that music in the first place.
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With a longstanding commitment to the musical arts, the Recording Academy (The Grammy Awards) has a foundation called Musicares, which has for years been a massive support network for musicians and music industry professionals in a myriad of ways, including financial, medical, mental health and addiction support.
They are an extremely effective avenue to help with wildfire relief efforts and have many ways in which we can all be involved in supporting the musicians, producers, bands, composers, publicists, songwriters, roadies, and all who have been affected by this devastating natural disaster.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/music/news/music-industry-may-never-fully-recover-from-the-wildfires-in-los-angeles/
https://audiophix.com/music-industry-may-never-fully-recover-wildfires-los-angeles